R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 519

In Christ Alone — 99¢ eBook Sale

For a limited time Reformation Trust is making select titles even more accessible as we lower their eBook price to 99¢. We continue this month by offering you In Christ Alone by Sinclair Ferguson.

Dr. Ferguson explores aspects of the person and work of Jesus in In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life. This collection of articles is designed to help believers gain a better understanding of their Savior and the Christian faith, and to live out that faith in their day-to-day lives. In Christ Alone is packed full of nuggets of Scriptural truth that will spark and fan the flames of the believer's love for the Savior who is so beautiful in His person andd so faithful in His work on behalf of His beloved sheep.

"In Christ Alone is a basic systematic theology in the form of a very readable book. Whether you are a new Christian looking for basic Christian doctrine or a more mature one wanting a refresher, this book will both instruct you and delight you. I warmly commend it to all Christians who want to grow in their faith."

—Jerry Bridges

In Christ Alone is currently on sale for 99¢ as both an ePub from the Ligonier Store or from Amazon's Kindle Store. Offer expires August 17th, 2012.

4 Disturbing Trends in the Contemporary Church

According to several studies, American evangelicals generally do not know what they believe and why they believe it. Consequently, most share with the wider culture a confidence in human goodness and a weak view of the need for God's saving grace in Jesus Christ. According to these reports, most evangelicals believe that we are saved by being good and that there are many ways of salvation apart from explicit faith in Jesus Christ.

Here are a few of the disturbing trends that need to be checked and reformed in contemporary church life:

1. We are all too confident in our own words

We are all too confident in our own words, so that churches become echo chambers for the latest trends in pop psychology, marketing, politics, entertainment, and entrepreneurial leadership. We need to recover our confidence in the triune God and His speech, as He addresses us authoritatively in His Word.

2. We are all too confident in our own methods

We are all too confident in our own methods for success in personal, ecclesial, and social transformation. We need to be turned again to God's judgment and grace, His action through His ordained means of grace.

3. We are all too confident in our own good works

We are all too confident in our own good works. We need to repent and be brought again to despair not only of our sins but of our pretended righteousness.

4. We are all too enamored of our own glory

We are all too enamored of our own glory, the kingdoms that we are building. We need to be brought back to that place of trust in Christ where we are deeply aware of "receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken" (Heb. 12:28), because God is building it for His own glory, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.

Only as we turn our ears away from the false promises of this passing age to God's Word, to His saving revelation in Christ as the only gospel, and to the glory of the triune God as our only goal, can we expect to see a genuine revival of Christian discipleship, worship, and mission in the world today.

Excerpt adapted from Michael Horton's foreword in R.C. Sproul's latest book, Are We Together? Available now from ReformationTrust.com

Why Did John the Baptist Call Israel to be Baptized?

In this excerpt from his teaching series, What Did Jesus Do?, Dr. R.C. Sproul explains why John the Baptist called the whole nation of Israel to be baptized.

Transcript

Remember in the Old Testament the prophets, particularly Isaiah, talked about the coming of the Messiah, but that before the Messiah would arrive there would be a forerunner. One who would come and prepare the way for the Messiah. And John is that one who is anointed by God to be the one who's crying as a voice in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight His paths." And so in this preparatory mission to which John is sent, and for which he is consecrated by God, he's now calling the whole nation of Israel to be subjected to baptism. Why? What was his message? He comes on the scene and his message is simply this: "Repent..." Why? "...for the kingdom of God is at hand." The kingdom of God that the Jews looked forward to in the prophecies of the Old Testament was in the nebulous, distant, far-off future. No specific time frame had been given for their expectation of the coming of the kingdom and the coming of the Messiah.

And what John is saying is the time is at hand, the kingdom of God is about to break through. And he uses some metaphors and some images to describe the urgency of the moment, where he says, "The axe is laid at the root of the tree." Now using that image of the woodsman who goes out and he's going to chop down a tree and he starts with the outer bark and he makes a dent in the bark and then he has to keep penetrating deeper, and deeper, and deeper into the course of the tree and get to the root of the tree before the tree will topple.

And so John's image is this: It's not like the woodsman is out in the shed sharpening his axe and thinking about cutting down the tree, nor has he just given one or two strokes to the tree removing the outer bark. No! The axe has come all the way, cutting through all the pulp and the meat of the wood to the very center and core. So that with one more stroke, in one more second, the tree will fall.

The other image he uses is of the winnowing fork, where the farmer says it's time for harvest. And they would harvest the wheat, and they would separate the wheat by the chaff. They would have this big pile of wheat and it would be all filled with chaff and you wouldn't get down on your hands and knees and take a little piece of wheat and a little piece of chaff—it would take you forever to do the harvest. But because the chaff was lighter than the wheat the farmers used the winnowing fork. And they would take this big fork and they would put it into the pile of wheat and chaff and just throw it up into the air and the slightest zephyr of wind would carry the chaff away. And the heavier wheat would settle straight down. And the separation between the wheat and the chaff had taken place—efficiently.

And John says, here's how urgent it is. His fork is in His hand. He's ready to put that winnowing fork into that wheat and the chaff. That crisis moment of separation is now. It's about to break through and the problem with you, Israel, is that the King is about to appear and the Messiah is at the threshold, and you're not ready; you're unclean.

When Towers Fall

Here's an excerpt from When Towers Fall, R.C. Sproul's contribution to the August issue of Tabletalk.

When a catastrophe happens in our world, it is virtually certain that a question will come up: "Where was God?" People always seem to question how a good God could allow a terrible thing to happen.

The same question came up in Jesus' time, as we see from an incident recorded in Luke's Gospel:

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." (13:1–5)

Some people asked Jesus a question about an atrocity that had occurred at the hands of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. It seems that some people who were in the midst of worship were massacred by Pilate's soldiers. The people who came to Jesus were troubled about this and asked Him how God could have allowed it to happen to His chosen people.

Continue reading When Towers Fall.

Are We Together? New from R.C. Sproul and Reformation Trust

"When it's the truth of the gospel that's at stake, you have to be able to let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also." —R.C. Sproul

In recent years, some evangelical Protestant leaders have signed statements pledging themselves to joint social action with Roman Catholics. Others have refused to participate, declaring that, in their view, the statements went too far, touching on the gospel, which remains a point of disagreement between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Many evangelical Christians have found themselves confused by the different directions taken by their leaders.

In Are We Together? A Protestant Analyzes Roman Catholicism, Dr. R.C. Sproul takes his stand for the cardinal doctrines of Protestantism in opposition to the errors of the Roman Catholic Church. Sproul, a passionate defender of the gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, cites the historic statements of the Protestant Reformers and the Roman Catholic authorities, then references modern doctrinal statements to show that the Roman Catholic Church has not altered its official positions. In light of this continuing gap, he writes, efforts by some in the evangelical camp to find common ground with Rome on matters at the heart of the gospel are nothing short of untrue to biblical teaching. In Sproul's estimation, the Reformation remains relevant.

Are We Together? is a clarion call to evangelicals to stand firm for the gospel, the precious good news of salvation as it is set forth in Scripture alone.

Buy Are We Together? for $17.00 $13.60 from ReformationTrust.com.

Endorsements

For two decades (or longer), evangelicals have been making a steady retreat from practically every front of historic contention with the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. The statement called Evangelicals & Catholics Together accelerated the quest for evangelical-Catholic détente in the mid-1990s. Many evangelicals seem to think this is a positive, unifying movement. I'm convinced it is a dangerous drift. From the time I began to detect this new ecumenical climate until now, one the few voices sounding a clear and consistent warning about it has always been R. C. Sproul's. He sees clearly that what is at stake is nothing less than the gospel. The various recent ecumenical manifestoes all demonstrate this, albeit in subtle, confusing terms. More proof is found in the published teachings of the Roman Catholic Church herself. For at least fifteen years, I have wished for a clear, accessible exposé using the most recent Roman Catholic catechism to show why that church's doctrine is incompatible with—even hostile to—the true gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm especially glad now to have just such a book from the pen of Dr. Sproul. No one is better qualified than he to speak definitively to the issues, and he has done a superb job of making the case from Scripture, from church history, and from the Catechism of the Catholic Church itself."

—Dr. John MacArthur
Pastor-teacher, Grace Community Church
Sun Valley, Calif.

"We live at a time when evangelicalism's theological chaos and preference for parachurch pyrotechnics over biblical ecclesiology have made Rome an increasingly attractive option for many Christians seeking something more intellectually and institutionally satisfying. This is why Dr. Sproul's book is so timely, as it sets out the differences between orthodox Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in a clear, concise, and helpful way. Anyone wanting to know what is at stake in the debate between Geneva and Rome should read this book."

—Dr. Carl R. Trueman
Professor of church history
Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pa.

"In an ecumenical age that prizes tolerance as a preeminent virtue, it takes courage to write the kind of book R. C. Sproul has written. In this fine, penetrating study, Sproul makes the case for the need to continue the 'protest' of the sixteenth-century Reformation against the errors of the Roman Catholic Church. While many so-called 'Protestants' are forgetting why the Reformation occurred in the first place, or naively assuming that the errors of the Roman Catholic Church are no longer serious enough to require their protest, Sproul offers a compelling brief for continuing vigilance for the sake of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the reformation of the church. In the clear and compelling style for which he is so well known, Sproul identifies the principal points of disagreement between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. And he does so in a way that combines resolute commitment to the truth with careful discernment of error."

—Dr. Cornelis Venema
President and professor of doctrinal studies
Mid-America Reformed Seminary, Dyer, Ind.

Buy it for $17.00 $13.60 from ReformationTrust.com.

Why Pastors Should Study at Ligonier Academy

If you are a pastor or missionary who is seeking a deeper knowledge of and greater competence in the practice of ministry, the standard advice is to enroll in a Doctor of Ministry program.

But which one?

Dozens of seminaries offer good Doctor of Ministry programs. Why, then, should you consider pursuing a D.Min. degree at Ligonier Academy? What is unique about the Doctor of Ministry program at Ligonier Academy?

First, the Ligonier Academy Doctor of Ministry program is focused. We are not offering courses on current trends and fads in the church. We are focused on helping pastors gain greater understanding and competence in the most important aspects of their ministry. We begin with a basic course explaining the Reformed Philosophy of Ministry. Students then take four courses on fundamental ministerial issues: preaching, worship, missions and evangelism, and pastoral care.

Second, the Ligonier Academy Doctor of Ministry program has a unique focus on biblical and theological studies. Every Ligonier Academy D.Min. student takes a course on the doctrine of justification. This important biblical doctrine comes under fire in every generation, and ministers need to be reminded of the basic issues involved in order that they might teach and defend the Gospel effectively. The Ligonier Academy D.Min. program also requires two classes titled respectively: Issues in Biblical Studies and Issues in Theological Studies. The topics of these two courses change each time they are taught. Their content depends on the professor who has been invited to teach. In the past, Issues in Theological Studies has included courses by Michael Horton on covenant theology and Robert Letham on the Trinity. Our first Issues in Biblical Studies course was a course on the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament and was taught by Dr. D.A. Carson. Our next Issues in Biblical Studies course will be taught by Dr. T. Desmond Alexander, and the topic will be the development of Old Testament themes from Eden to Sinai and beyond.

Third, the Ligonier Academy Doctor of Ministry program is taught by a world-class faculty. In addition to Carson, Letham, Horton, and Alexander, we have offered courses by R.C. Sproul, Sinclair Ferguson, Ron Gleason, Dennis Johnson, Steven Lawson, Mark Ross, and Derek Thomas. Among those we have joining us for upcoming courses are: Samuel Larsen and J.V. Fesko.

We truly believe that Ligonier Academy offers one of the finest Doctor of Ministry programs in the world. We invite you to join those who are already pursuing their degree here.

Twitter Highlights (8/5/12)

Here are highlights from our various Twitter accounts over the past week.

Error is old, but truth is more ancient than that (John Gill).

— Tabletalk Magazine (@Tabletalk) July 31, 2012

The gospel is simply the most transformative, the most powerful, & the most explosive message there is. —@albertmohler bit.ly/hgeJlK

— Reformation Trust (@RefTrust) July 31, 2012

The doctrine of irresistible grace is quite simple—if God wants us, then He will get us: ligm.in/Jt96z1

— Ligonier Ministries (@Ligonier) August 1, 2012

Our presale pricing for "Economics for Everybody" is about to end. Learn more: ligm.in/R9QbN1

— Ligonier Ministries (@Ligonier) August 1, 2012

Prospective college students, register for preview weekend Sept 21-22 and receive FREE admission to the fall conference bit.ly/QhYwfF

— RefBibleCollege (@RefBibleCollege) August 2, 2012

Just launched: "Reformation Profiles" a NEW course from Ligonier Connect taught by Dr. Stephen Nichols. bit.ly/MTcLc4

— Ligonier Connect (@LigonierConnect) August 2, 2012

Watch this short video to learn why R.C. Sproul wrote his latest @reftrust book, "Are We Together?" bit.ly/OEe6jr

— Reformation Trust (@RefTrust) August 2, 2012

God had one Son without sin, but none without sorrow (Augustine).

— Ligonier Academy (@LigonierAcademy) August 3, 2012

Not only are we allowed to suffer, it’s our vocation as Christians. —R.C. Sproul

— Ligonier Ministries (@Ligonier) August 3, 2012

You can also find our various ministries on Facebook:

Ligonier Ministries | Ligonier Academy | Ligonier Connect | RefNet
Reformation Bible College | Reformation Trust | Tabletalk Magazine

Does Proverbs teach "the Health, Wealth, and Prosperity Gospel?"

Does Proverbs teach "the Health, Wealth, and Prosperity Gospel?" It certainly contains multiple promises of health, wealth, and prosperity to those who live wisely. However, there's an eternity of difference between the Prosperity Gospel and Gospel Prosperity. Let me give you five statements that will help clarify that difference.

1. God has provided external Wisdom, in principle and Person form, to correct our sin-caused ignorance, error, and folly.

God made us with knowledge, rightness, and practical life-skills. However, as a punishment for Adam's sin, God cursed Adam and his descendants with ignorance, error, and folly.

As no amount of research, experimentation, or reasoning will make us spiritually wise again, God has revealed His otherwise inaccessible and unattainable Wisdom to us. In the Old Testament, God reveals that wisdom largely in principle form (e.g. the Moral Law, the Proverbs). However, Proverbs also personifies Wisdom, giving a hint of a future revelation of Wisdom in human form, a revelation we now know is Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:24; Col. 2:3).

2. As Wisdom cannot be attained, retained, or practiced quickly or easily, God has graciously incentivized the diligent pursuit and practice of it with multiple different rewards.

As sinners find it so difficult to seek, keep, and do Wisdom for its own sake, throughout Proverbs God promises spiritual, physical, intellectual, financial, social, relational, and eternal rewards for seeking, remembering, and doing it. Yet even these rewards are of grace, because God is not obliged to reward what we should do anyway, and any spiritual diligence is itself His gift.

3. In the NT era, Wisdom's rewards are more spiritual and eternal than material and temporary, Gospel prosperity more than the Prosperity Gospel.

The Old Testament manifested spiritual blessings in a much more material form, mainly because the church was still in its infancy. Although God still blesses in material ways, the focus of Christ and His Apostles is much more on spiritual and eternal blessings (e.g. John 7:17; 14:16,21; Rev. 3:7, 11).

The Prosperity Gospel puts prosperity before the Gospel, and seeks prosperity above all else. Gospel prosperity puts the Gospel first and gratefully accepts any spiritual and material blessings as the overflow of a Gospel-centered life.

4. The divinely-ordained connection between godliness and Gospel prosperity is a general maxim, but not without notable exceptions.

There are two kinds of wisdom in the poetic books. Practical Wisdom contains simple, optimistic, popular, and pithy truths. It describes the way things generally ought to be (e.g. the Proverbs). Philosophical Wisdom deals much more with the complexities of life. It reflects on the reality that things do not always go as they ought, that there are sometimes enigmas, mysteries, and exceptions to Practical Wisdom (e.g. Job, Ecclesiastes).

It's like learning a language. You start by learning all the basic rules and regular patterns (Practical Wisdom), and once you've mastered them, then you consider the irregular verbs, the qualifications to the rules, etc., (Philosophical Wisdom).

5. Seek and embrace Wisdom for Wisdom's sake, not for the rewards He brings.

While the rewards should encourage us to seek and practice Wisdom, it is best to look on them retrospectively rather than prospectively. Don't predict in the future tense, "If I do this, then I'll get this." Rather reflect in the past tense, "I did that, and the Lord has graciously rewarded me."

A couple of weeks ago I came home from a solo trip to Scotland. Imagine if when I came off my plane, my children grabbed my case and started rifling through it to find their presents, and then walked away leaving me empty-handed with my bags strewn all over the airport!

Don't seek the gifts but the Giver, not the rewards of Wisdom but the Rewarder who is Wisdom. Remember what God said to Abram: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward" (Gen. 15:1 NKJV).

$5 Friday: Spurgeon, Theology, and Atheism

It's time for this week's $5 Friday sale. On sale are resources that cover such topics as spiritual growth, Charles Spurgeon, apologetics, theology, music, atheism, Scripture, heaven, and more.

Sale runs through 12:01 a.m. — 11:59 p.m. Friday EST.

View today's $5 Friday sale items.

Columns from Tabletalk Magazine, August 2012

The August edition of Tabletalk is out. This issue addresses Eastern spirituality and its increasing global influence. While containing truths accrued through general revelation, Eastern spirituality nonetheless denies the fundamental tenets of the gospel, and Christians must recognize the danger it presents despite its non-abrasive presentation and ideals.

Contributors include R.C. Sproul along with Eric Alexander, Voddie Baucham, Winfried Corduan, Michael Gleghorn, Dan Iverson, Peter Jones, J. Nelson Jennings, and R.C. Sproul Jr..

We do not post all of the feature articles or the daily devotionals from the issue, so you'll have to subscribe to get those. But for now, here are links to several free columns and articles from this month:

When Towers Fall by R.C. Sproul
Where East Meets West by Burk Parsons
The Son Rising in the East by R.C. Sproul Jr.
Eastern Bankruptcy by Dan Iverson
The Religious Affections by Owen Strachan
Every Conflict is a Test by Alexander Strauch
Indispensable Apologetics: An Interview with Ravi Zacharias
Pilgrims in a Post-Christian Culture by Voddie Baucham

If you have not yet subscribed to Tabletalk, now is the perfect time. For those living in the U.S. and Canada it's only $23 for a year, and $20 to renew. You save even more if you get a 2- or 3-year subscription (as little as $1.36 per issue). We offer special discounts for churches or businesses who want multiple copies of each issue.

Get your subscription to Tabletalk today by calling one of Ligonier Ministries' resource consultants at 800-435-4343 (8am-8pm ET, Mon-Fri) or by subscribing online. You can also get free shipping on individual 2012 issues of Tabletalk.